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- VA: Search incident between def’s shorts and underwear was reasonable
- Reason: Border Cops Seize Nurse’s Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
- MI: Handcuffing uncooperative def at scene of accident wasn’t unreasonable
- S.D.Ga.: Def’s car in driveway next to sidewalk was not on curtilage
- S.D.Ind.: Post search database search of occupants of a place didn’t show SW affidavit was false at time it issued
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
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“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: Plain view, feel, smell
IN: Smell of meth was PC, aside from knowledge of purchase of precursors
Officers knew that defendant had bought precursors to make methamphetamine, and that they were likely in his car. There was enough information for probable cause for a search of the car, independent of what the officers smelled. The appellate argument … Continue reading
WV: GSR removal subject to search incident–no SW required
Taking gunshot residue without a warrant incident to arrest is reasonable because it disappears so fast. [The court analogizes blood alcohol, but GSR can disappear easily within minutes, simply by putting one’s hands in pockets or rubbing hands together.] State … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer isn’t obliged to ask about MMJ card when he smells MJ coming from car
Odor of marijuana in car was still probable cause. “Johnson contends that Sergeant Simmont’s failure to ask whether Johnson carried a medical marijuana card undermined any finding of probable cause. But Johnson cites no authority for the proposition that Sergeant … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Smell of PCP from a car was PC
On officer on an unrelated call in the neighborhood in early morning hours heard a nearby gunshot. Dispatch reported that the shot was reported by ShotSpotter to be likely at a certain address. There the officer found people milling around. … Continue reading
CA8: Plain view of cell phone screen supported seizure of phone
The 75 day delay in getting the IP address and a 51 day delay after associating the IP address with defendant in a child pornography search warrant case did not make the warrant stale. Defendant turned on his phone in … Continue reading
IN: Search incident of jacket left in car on arrest for outstanding warrant was unreasonable
Defendant was pulled over because an LPN check showed his license was suspended and there was a warrant out for him. When he got out of the car, he took off his jacket and left it in the car. Since … Continue reading
NJ rejects the state’s prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine
The prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine is rejected prospectively only. State v. Gonzales, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 1177 (Nov. 15, 2016) (summary by the court):
OH5: Raw marijuana shake around in the front area of the car was PC for a search
Raw marijuana shake around in the front area of the car was probable cause for a search. State v. James, 2016-Ohio-7660, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 4531 (5th Dist. Oct. 31, 2016). “In conclusion, Pankey is incorrect to present this case … Continue reading
CA8: Key fob in pocket, common today, is not RS def was driving a nearby stolen car
A key fob in one’s pocket, common today, is not reasonable suspicion defendant was driving a nearby stolen car. The seizure was suppressed. United States v. Craddock, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20118 (8th Cir. Nov. 8, 2016):
HI: Calling police to garage showed no REP there; plain view sustained
Police summoned to defendant’s house by his 911 call did not intrude on defendant’s subjective or actual reasonable expectation of privacy. A plain view of a hammer as a weapon was thus valid. State v. Phillips, 2016 Haw. LEXIS 234 … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Even if dog unlawfully came on curtilage, officers’ plain smell of MJ from the street was PC
Officers went to defendant’s house suspecting a grow operation. On the sidewalk in front of his house, they could smell raw marijuana. They went to the door and window air conditioning unit and could smell it. They brought a drug … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: That Alabama ABC officers didn’t state authority to make a traffic stop isn’t a 4A issue
Defendant was pulled over by state ABC officers. His claim that they lacked authority to do so under Alabama law doesn’t apply in federal court. That’s his only ground, so motion to suppress denied. United States v. Henry, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
CA2: Murder scene entry resulted in valid protective sweep and plain view
NYPD’s crime scene entry at the scene of a murder and protective sweep were all valid because of the exigency of the entry. Drug and other evidence was in plain view. [There are no facts talking about standing, or whether … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Apt complex private security detained and searched def for trespass, and it was a private search
Defendant was in a friend’s apartment smoking pot when the complex’s security guards came to a noise complaint. Defendant was on a no-trespassing list and he was handcuffed and searched. Defendant had no standing in the pot in the apartment. … Continue reading
OR: Stuff left in a crashed and abandoned stolen truck had no REP
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in containers he left fleeing from a stolen truck. State v. Stubblefield, 279 Ore. App. 483, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 928 (July 20, 2016). The officer smelled burnt marijuana during his stop of … Continue reading
AZ: Smell of marijuana from a car in a MMJ state is RS without indication it is really just MMJ
“Here we consider whether the odor of marijuana suffices to establish probable cause for issuance of a search warrant, given the adoption of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA), A.R.S. §§ 36-2801 through 2819. We hold that it does, unless … Continue reading